Primary Menu

Dell XPS M1330 Delay Part 3 – Lack of Information

I’ve already posted several times about the delays and issues surrounding the Dell XPS M1330 laptop. I spent a good chunk of money of a new XPS M1330 and as a result would like to be kept informed of developments. My initial estimated ship date of August 22nd hasn’t come yet, so in that regard, I’m not worried. However, what I am worried about is the fact that numerous people who had estimated ship dates much earlier than I, have seen those dates come and go, without any sign of their laptop. What’s worse is that no one’s saying why. I am also worried about customer sales representatives at Dell who were, and some still are, promising 10-15 day estimates for the new system. Many people based their purchases around this information, which has since been proven completely, utterly inaccurate. There is no good, reliable information about what is really going on and what has caused all the issues.

Direct2Dell, Dell’s official blog was started to create open dialog between Dell and its (potential) customers. It allowed more transparency into the inner workings of Dell and allowed readers to get a sense of how Dell operates and various initiatives they’ve been undertaking. However, in the case of the XPS M1330, it has failed horribly. At this point, we can’t get legitimate information from sales representatives, we can’t get it from customer care, and we can’t even get it from Dell’s official blog.

I know several of you are expecting an update on the status of the XPS M1330. Truth is that I still need a bit more time to finalize the details. I should have a brief update by sometime tomorrow.

My apologies for the delay.

Update 7/27: We’re still working through some details and hope to share more soon. My apologies for the delay in communication.

Published Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:50 PM

It’s bad enough that the brief update promised for ‘tomorrow’, which meant July 26th at the time, didn’t materialize until July 27th, it also ended being this priceless little nugget of information – “We’re still working through some details and hope to share more soon. My apologies for the delay in communication.”

Ironically, just like the M1330 itself, Dell cannot deliver on its promise of even a situation update. It is really disappointing and for many customers, it is infuriating. Writing things like that is just a tease and for customers like myself, it provides absolutely no comfort to see this level of disorganization.

Since it doesn’t look likely that anything new will be posted before the weekend, I’m going to take it upon myself to collect as much non-misinformation as I’ve either been told directly by Dell or others have been told by Dell. I’ve sent this list of issues on to a contact at Dell for verification, but since I have not heard back in a few days and no new information has come out of the Direct2Dell blog, I’m going to post it here. I’ll be sure to update this if I do hear anything back.

There are issues with panel availability. This does not seem to be only affecting the M1330 as other Dell laptops now also have delay times for certain panels. LED panels may be worse of.

The 8400M GS dedicated graphics card is also facing parts shortages

The Core 2 Duo T7700 was initially available as a processor option but was pulled in many locales and orders placed with the T7700 were either automatically canceled or downgraded to the T7300. Initially the cause was thought to be thermal or power consumption issues; however, I have a feeling it was due to the improperly configured order system that resulted in the T7700 being listed at the same price as the T7300. This would also explain why some places (such as Canada) now have the T7700 option back, as well as why the processors were downgraded to the T7300 as opposed to the T7500.

Canada was hit with some major order system problems that resulted in the wrong part number being assigned to the LED display. Consequently, numerous (I heard a thousand or more) orders were canceled without notification, and subsequent re-orders were placed at the back of the queue, meaning in some cases, an additional month tacked onto the estimated ship date. These issues are apparently now sorted out and orders that were canceled and replaced have been rushed to get them in on time. There was also indication that the Bluetooth module was also suffering from this problem, but other sources say the Bluetooth problem was a compatibility issue with the system mainboard.

When production of the M1330 started in earnest, it was noted that some manufacturing processes were not working. As a result, those processes had to be modified, which delayed and slowed down manufacturing of the systems.

I’ve decided to leave out of that list numerous things that I’ve heard but discarded as being either misinformation or customer service saying things to get people off the phone. For example, combining all the ‘parts shortages’, I believe just about every component has been accounted for. That includes the fingerprint reader, the chassis itself, the lid, the Bluetooth module, certain CPUs, the DVD drive, and so on.

Come on Dell, I just want to hear the truth. I’m tired of getting the run-around and having that information delayed for one reason or another, just like your laptop. Inform the CSRs about the problem so that people aren’t calling in constantly to find out a little more. Post the information on your site in a timely manner so that we may decide how to plan our purchases. The silent treatment will not prevent people from canceling en masse as the comments to the Direct2Dell posts have shown.

Post navigation

4 thoughts on “Dell XPS M1330 Delay Part 3 – Lack of Information”

whoaaaaa. site redesign say wha? that sucks about dell. you know if you had bought a macbook or a macbook pro there would have been no major delays? macbooks ship in 24 hours, and mbp between 7 and 10 days, and i’ve always found apple estimates to be very, very conservative.

Haha, yeah a redesign’s in the works, but when I put up what I thought was the final revision last night, it turned out to be missing a few things, so I pulled it, until later today at least.

You know what’s funny, I think the XPS M1330 has inadvertently made Apple quite a bit of business. A lot of people who planned on getting the M1330 ended up canceling and getting MacBook Pros – they’re around the same price range and the M1330 is closer to the MBP than the MacBook in terms of features. If I were to go that route, I’d just hop over to the Apple store and pick one up. 😉 No need to wait for shipping.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in the very extended lead times, Adam. Systems are shipping en masse now so I’d expect most systems to ship out earlier than September. Go check out the Dell section at Notebook Review – you’ll probably be pleased to read all the cases of early shipments.